


Kindred Lives

by Anonymous



Category: The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin
Genre: Alien Culture, Cultural Differences, Gen, History, Legends, sociology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 00:14:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30131061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: A representative of the Ekumen collects stores from the Sea Hemisphere.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5
Collections: Worldbuilding Exchange 2021





	Kindred Lives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fawatson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fawatson/gifts).



> _What about the others?_ asked my recipient, noting that Genly had only visited two of Gethen's nations. One of his colleagues tries to start answering that question.

## Field Notes of Syfo Hoon, Mobile of the Ekumen: Outreach to the Sea Hemisphere

### The Origins of Lifewater: A Story from Sith

_Sith is famed all over the planet for lifewater, a strong distilled liquor. As with vodka on Terra or sivarshi on Beldene, it is traditionally clear and without a particular flavor. It's said that the earliest lifewater was brewed from rugam, a root vegetable, but the vast majority of the lifewater exported from Sith for the last several hundred years is brewed from sheg, which is their word for the Hainish grain omyi, well suited to the cold, moist conditions of southern Sith._

_My informant was Udara tembek Sefnoy: "Udara born to the kinship of Sefnoy." Sefnoy is the name of a region on the eastern coast, famed for a well-regarded variety of lifewater that bears the name of its territory. You may order it by name in Orgoreyn or Karhide and be thought a person of wealth and taste._

You're the new envoy? Our own envoy? How marvelous, that you have taken time to come down from the stars like an angel of Meshe and visit us! Of course, in our lands we like to say that even the angels prefer the lifewater of Sefnoy. You laugh! Of course you do, but you know, they say that the first lifewater was given to human people by an angel. Yes, that's what they say. I'll tell you the story, shall I? But first, I'll have my kemmering bring us a drink. No, not lifewater at mid-day. Kurzen, some ale, if you will ….

Now, you can quaff, and I will talk. Very long ago, there was a person who often braved the solitude away from his village. As soon as his kemmer ended, he would be off to the wilds, looking for plants of all kinds. He could find the rarest of dyestuffs and the most savory seasoning herbs, and neither storm nor terrain would halt his searches. But one day, he was caught in a torrential storm, a great-great-great-grandparent of a storm. The kindly river that he usually forded safely at a place that only he knew was swollen and enraged, and it stayed that way for some time.

On the third day, the water was still too high for him to cross, and Enalt—that was his name—was seriouslly worried. Here he was, a week from his next kemmer, and nearly that from his village. He sat on a rock by the river and looked through his pack. He has enough food for several days, and in any case, he was a great forager and even a bit of a hunter. But get across the river he could not.

Enalt heard soft footsteps behind him.

The ground near the river was open, and he had seen no one for days. He turned, and there behind his was a tall, graceful person clad all in shining white. The stranger seemed young, and his skin was fine and unlined, but his dark hair was sprinkled with silver-white that shone even in the bright sunlight.

"Well!" said Enalt. "You have given me the surprise! I have seen no one for days, and yet here you are."

"Indeed, I am here, Enalt," said the stranger.

Now Enalt was a bit taken aback. for this person knew him, although Enalt knew he had never seen this other before.

"I have been watching you," continued the stranger, "And I know that you are in a bit of a fix. In seven days your blood will heat and consume you in kemmer. This river will not go down for three more days. And you will never reach your village in time, nor any other people."

"How do you know this, stranger?" asked Enalt.

"I have been watching you," repeated the stranger. "Enalt the far walker, Enalt of Termonak, Enalt child of Sobrem."

Now Enalt felt the hair on his neck stand up in fear, for Termonak was indeed his village and Sobrem his parent. "You have good eyes, then, to see so much," he said. "Can those fine eyes of yours see how I am to reach home in time, instead of running mad with longing here in the wilderness?" Indeed, the stranger's eyes were a clear grey, pale as mountain springwater.

"You have an empyty jug there," said the stranger. "Let me fill it for you, and having drunk the water I give you, you will be able to ford these raging waters and race to Termonak with the swiftness of the north wind."

The jug was indeed empty of the ale Enalt had brought with him on his journey, so he gave it to tall stranger. The other unstopped the jug and held it upright, cradled in one arm. He cupped his other hand above it, and the sunlight seemed to fill his palm with something bright and liquid, which poured from his hand into the mouth of the jug. Enalt could do nothing but watch this strange business, bewlidered.

"There now,' said the stranger, and replaced the stopper. "Here, take your jug and taste that which I have provided."

Enalt took back his jug, which was heavy and sloshed with a sound that told him it was full indeed. He opened it, and the scent of the liquid was strong and sharp and tickled his nose. He took a sip, and it burned his mouth. 

"Yes, it is powerful," said the stranger, and laughed. "Drink more, Enalt, so that its power may be yours."

So Enalt drank from the jug, until the burning warmed him about his heart and downward to his toes and upward to his head. His senses swam for a moment, and then he felt as strong as the mountain stone. "This is a marvel!" he cried. "May it please you to give me your name, so that I may thank you properly?"

The stranger smiled, and his weird eyes flashed with sun. "Chushenarshya is my name, Enalt. Chushenarshya Yomeshenin."

Enalt's head spun again, for this was the name and designation of an angel of Meshe, He stammered out his thanks, hardly knowing what words he said. "Fear not, Enalt," said the messenger of the heavens. "It is well that you have this gift. Now ford the flood and head for home."

So Enalt sealed the now-precious jug and stowed it in his pack. He shouldered his burden, and the angel waved him toward the raging river. Enalt stepped into the cold, cold water, and it seemed to him that it was no more chill than a summer's rain shower. He could see stepping stones through the fierce flood, and he stepped from stone to stone as though he walked on a dry path. When he reached the far side, he turned to thank his savior again, but the angel was already small with distance and shining so brightly that Enalt could not bear to look. He turned his face toward home and ran, running as fast as the north wind, as he had ben promised.

When Enalt reached reached Termonak a scant four days later, his head ached as though it would split, and he was thirsty and dry, though half the precious liquor remained in the jug. He drank the well water of Termonak and ate a meal cooked by his parent Sobrem, and after that he found that he knew how this angelic water was to be made. And so Enalt of Termonak became the first distiller.

How was that, envoy? A good tale? No, of course it isn't truth. Surely someone many hundreds of years ago was trying to boil ale down for a cure, or some such, and tried the liquid that had collected under the lid of the pot, and tasted how it had changed, and someone else tried another way of collecting what came from the boiling, and so on. But angels are more interesting! As they say, truth will educate a lifetime, but a story lives in the heart forever.

### The Way of Incest: An Interview in Perunter

_Originally, Karm Es Shering was assigned to Perunter, but he was not making much headway. In fact, most people seemed to be avoiding Ekumen contact after his first few days here, so I was asked to change places with him._

_After spending two weeks in the chief city, Shparrin, apparently being avoided by everyone except when I wanted to spend some coin, I was finally approached by a person who was introduced as Orv'ir Kushvar. 'Kushvar' is the personal name._

You're after incest stories, aren't you, Hoon? Parent and child together, yes? Not sibs. Everyone wants that, all of them, all the visitors from other lands. I don't think your Shering was any worse than most of them, despite being from off in space. I said that, down at the council house, and they told me that I should be the one to talk with you, if I felt that way. So here I am. Don't play shy, now.

Yes, it has happened. I daresay it might happen again, although we try to avoid it. Listen, they say you people don't go into kemmer at all, is that so? How does that work? Are you fertile all the time? Huh. Alright, so you feel the urge a little bit most of the time, even when you aren't fertile. How am I going to say this, then?

Listen, imagine having your nose and mouth covered, so that you can't breathe. And you were told you could breathe again in a minute. You would be starved of air in no time, wouldn't you? And you would think you'd die without air, well before the time was up. That's being in kemmer, it's that urgent.

I hear you people are great scientists, you note how everything works, you make theories and so forth. Consider this. How many living souls does a town need, to guarantee everyone a kemmer partner at their time of month?

Consider this. How many souls can this bare, cold land of ours, here in Perunter, support?

Sometimes, a town falls on hard times. It's clear it's not going to work out. Maybe there are rubies in the rivers, maybe there is copper in the hills, but you can't eat jewels or metal. Then, during the winter, food gets scarce and it can get so cold that no one travels. And then, of those that survive, maybe a handful leave, to come back to the easier life on the coast. Or a dozen leave in the autumn, when the winds cut sharp and people start remembering how it was last winter. And soon, there aren't enough people for everyone to have a kemmering when the day comes. And then it happens. The parent and the child. Yes. It happens.

Nowadays, we're modern, we have machines, we make plans for a whole nation at a time. If there has to be mining, the town is planned out to have more than enough people, and roads are cleared in the winter, and food stored carefully. And twice now, when a mine has started to prove not worth the risk, we have moved an entire town so this situation would not occur. Think of it! An entire town, moved so that no one goes without a kemmering in their time of need. We are an impressive people, down here, though the world thinks otherwise.

Yes, it could happen again. Write that down in your notes, Hoon. Tell them, out in the stars, that you were told this by the great-grandchild and grandchild of Ezbek and the grandchild of Ezbek's child Erzi. Yes, my ancestors lived this story I have told.

### Leave No One Behind: A Spiel from the Archipelago

_My relative success in Perunter caused the rest of the team to think I deserved a vacation, which was nonsense: finally getting somewhere with the people of Shparrin was worth five vacations. Everyone insisted, however, and it was easier to give in. I was not really interested in a posting to the Great Continent, so I was sent to the Archipelago. During the summer, these islands are as temperate as it is possible to get on Gethen, although they tend to be rainy and extremely humid._

_My base of operations was Nishni, one of the largest islands, but I managed to gain passage on a ship that was doing a supply run to the smallest islands in the extreme western part of the chain. The skipper was a garrulous person called Foa Tulig Ulashe who was more than happy to answer my questions._

Indeed, these islands are small. Oh, yes, kemmer would be a problem out here, on an island that has room for only thirty or forty at most. You notice how our route weaves back and forth, don't you? We go out to a few of the small islands, then we head back to one of their larger siblings. An island like Nishni or Foa, with ten thousand souls or more, is generous to its people: you can always find a partner. But these little fish-eggs, these jumped-up rocks, are no place for a person in the prime of life. So hardly anyone lives out there, and voyagers like myself tend to be people whose cycles are utterly predictable, so we always know how much time we have and can end our trips in a good, big island where we have plenty of choice for a kemmering.

Alright, yes, I exaggerate. But not much. You may not have noticed, but everyone who has greeted us at one of these little ports was no longer young. Yes, there was a child or three, visiting a grandparent for the summer. They are hearty old folk, these islanders, no frail people teetering to the end of their years, they are well able to keep up with a few children. They've all hit the change of life, though: no more kemmer. So they have no such concerns. You see your fellow passenger there, Laio? He's fifty-nine. He's been visiting family on Foa, but now he's returning to Savla, not our next port, that's on the big island of Narik, but the one after. He first came out to Savla three years ago and liked it. 

There's a famous fish migration that passes Savla, every year. The bezgro run so thick, you can almost scoop them up in a bucket! The old folk on Savla, they'll set nets between the rocks and go out in skiffs with more nets, and they'll pull the the bezgro out in the thousand thousands, and bring them back to Savla to process. Oh, mostly by drying them, whole for the tiny ones, gutted and split for the larger, but the mid-sized ones usually get canned in broth. Hard work, but Laio and his fellows thrive on it, and if I recall well, they have a dozen youngsters out there this summer to help. In two months, a whole crowd of boats will head out there and collect all the fish and the children. We'll bring along provender that isn't fish, clothing, little luxuries, and then the island of Savla will tuck itself away for the winter.

I wouldn't care for such a life: I'll sail 'til I can't climb aboard anymore, and then I'll warm a bench at my sib's tavern in Foa Port until the dark comes for me.

Hoon, when you came aboard, you asked me how much you should pay to travel with us. And you confused me to Gorinhering and back. We don't charge to bring a person where they want to go, only to move goods. People only go where they need to go, you see. Having folk on Savla makes us all richer, here in the Archipelago. And how could we not bring someone back to the big islands for their time of need? Today this youth from Kerawik—that thin one, climbing the mast, see?—today he benefits from being able to catch a ride, but in another time, it might be me.

The main thing you need to know is that we leave no one behind here, no one who doesn't want to be left.


End file.
